Summon Night 4
Summon Night 4 is a game for Playstation 2 and the last main entry in the series made by Flight Plan. It was ported for the Playstation Portable much later by FELISTELLA. Story The plot in this game focus on a parent/child relationship. The protagonist is a teenager who lives as a Inn keeper in Traiul, a town in the Empire. During a meteor shower, a giant egg falls next to the lead, reveling a baby dragon inside it. The dragon does an imprint and start thinking the protagonist is its parent. The protagonist adopts the dragon, but a mysterious group is also after the baby. He eventually comes to know that the baby is actually the reincarnation of a dragon god, – the protector of all summon beasts. The dragon’s clerics come to help but are unable to set them apart. Feeling responsible, the main character decides to protect the baby and consequently, every summon beast in the world. Characters List of Summon Night 4 characters Gameplay The PS2 version presented many new features like: *The ability to change between two weapons during battles. *The option to choose a 9th character in battles to become a “Support Unit” – a unit with many useful skills like cure or raise attribute. *The cooking system, which let the player cook many useful items to use for cure in battles or to upgrade summons. *A very rock-paper-scissors-like system to armors, this makes some equipments to resist a specific type of weapon while getting vunerable . *There is a new puzzle mini-game, and two old mini-games came back from Summon Night 2. *Finally the level of summon units are back to be based on the level of its summoner. Graphics *The 3D backgrounds are now more detailed and blend more with the characters' 2D sprites. *Characters portraits have more colors and details. *Characters sprites in battle now have different fighting poses. Endings *There are many endings like usual, however, many endings don’t have a romantic resolution. *It’s easier to see multiples endings in just one playthrough. *There is no Karma ending this time. *This doesn’t mean karma doesn’t exist anymore! Not only it can still take secret characters from you, but can also make some allies betray you. Reception This was one of Flight Plan’s biggest investments, every voice actor, every graphic, every movie were of high quality. The game needed to sell really well. However, general reception was bad, maybe the worst in the series. The game is still treated like a black sheep in the series and was one of the main reasons for Flight Plan’s bankruptcy. The exact reasons for this failure is still unknown. Some of the fan complains are as following (top ones being more frequent): *The plot and character are too happy-go-lucky, “betraying” the franchise “Crapsaccharine World” style. *The plot is also much simpler than older entries in the series, with no big schemes or conspiracies behind the scene. *During events, every big loss or sacrifice can be avoided, giving no feeling of surprise or threat. *There are many new features not welcomed by players, like the new armor vulnerability system and the cooking system, because those only made the game unnecessarily complicated. *The choices of partners got limited to three and they are all dragons. *Night Talks are not made in a first person perspective anymore, being a step back from its predecessor. *The main characters are not as charismatic as others in the series’ past entries. Remake The game received a upgrade for the Playstation Portable system. The game received many additions. But most were features already present on the Summon Night 3 remake also for the PSP and released one month before. As a result, SN4 remake got almost nothing compared to the SN3 remake. Fortunately, the game did unexpectedly well in sellers this time. No changes were made to the plot but some changes and addictions might have done the trick: *The armor vulnerability system is totally gone. *Cooking is way simpler this time. *The Night Talk events were remade in first person perspective once again, with all new graphics. *There are many new event graphics made especially for this version. *Every character and summon from the third game is available. Trivia *In contrast with the last game, this entry has the youngest main characters in the franchise (15 years). *The PSP remake has the biggest cast of characters and summons in all the franchise. With every character and summon from Summon Night 3 (that already include much of Summon Night 2 cast) and its own cast (that was already big as it was). However, the player will need a save file from the SN3 PSP remake in order to get everything. *This game events most likely happens at the same time as the third game’s epilogue. *For the first time, there are cameo of characters from a spin-off game (Summon Night Ex-These). Gallery SN4-04.jpg|Promotional art for the PS2 version SN4-01.jpg|Promotional art for the PSP version External Links * Official Japanese Site Category:Strategy RPG Category:Main Series